Predictive Spray Switching for an Efficient Path Planning Pattern for Area Coverage

2025-04-01

AI Summary

In variable-rate agricultural spraying, simultaneously minimizing path length and nozzle switching frequency remains challenging. Method: This paper proposes a predictive nozzle on/off control strategy integrated with swath-width spray booms and Boustrophedon path planning to achieve complete, low-redundancy coverage during mobile operations. It introduces predictive control—novel in agricultural spraying path planning—to overcome inherent latency limitations of conventional reactive control. By modeling spray timing and logically concatenating segmented paths, the method jointly optimizes path simplification rate and switching count. Contribution/Results: Experiments demonstrate that, compared to state-of-the-art reactive approaches, the proposed method significantly reduces total travel distance while maintaining 100% coverage completeness. Furthermore, it quantitatively characterizes the trade-off between path compression and increased switching frequency, providing actionable insights for system design and operational optimization.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Intelligent Robots: Motion and Path Planning
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: LLM based quality controls for crowd work

Abstract

This paper presents within an arable farming context a predictive logic for the on- and off-switching of a set of nozzles attached to a boom aligned along a working width and carried by a machinery with the purpose of applying spray along the working width while the machinery is traveling along a specific path planning pattern. Concatenation of multiple of those path patterns and corresponding concatenation of proposed switching logics enables nominal lossless spray application for area coverage tasks. Proposed predictive switching logic is compared to the common and state-of-the-art reactive switching logic for Boustrophedon-based path planning for area coverage. The trade-off between reduction in pathlength and increase in the number of required on- and off-switchings for proposed method is discussed.

Problem

• Optimizing nozzle switching for efficient spray coverage
• Comparing predictive vs reactive spray switching logic
• Balancing pathlength reduction and switching frequency

Innovation

• Predictive nozzle switching logic for spray efficiency
• Concatenated path patterns for lossless coverage
• Compares predictive and reactive switching methods